


gut (you should've listened)

by nearsgd



Category: K-pop, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Bullying, Depression, Eating Disorders, How Do I Tag, Hurt No Comfort, I Don't Even Know, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, LIKE EVER, Lowercase, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Sad Ending, Self-Harm, Suicide Notes, Unrequited Love, and its kinda awful, but basically yoongi is rly sad, hoseok has shitty friends, i dont know what im doing, idk who the friends are, lots of repetition, lowercase intended, pls go easy on me, this is my first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 11:00:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13996854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nearsgd/pseuds/nearsgd
Summary: being gay was not okay.yoongi repeated the mantra in his head as if it would help. as if it would ‘cure’ him, change him.don’t befriend your crush. don’t befriend his friends. it only makes for more people to hate you in the end.he knew this wouldn’t end well, but he never listened to his gut anyways.





	gut (you should've listened)

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like this moves really fast; this takes place over the course of a couple of years or so !!

being gay was not okay.  
breathe.  
being gay was not okay.  
breathe.  
being gay was not okay.  
breathe.

yoongi repeated the mantra in his head as if it would help. as if it would ‘cure’ him, change him. he knew he got into this mess by his own fault.  
don’t befriend your crush. don’t befriend his friends.  
it only makes for more people to hate you in the end.  
he knew it was a bad idea, but the way hoseok had desperately come to him, asking for help in the algebra class they shared, he couldn’t just say no. he knew this wouldn’t end well, but he never listened to his gut anyways. 

what had started out as simple friendship between the two grew, yoongi had gotten to know hoseok’s entire friend group. they were all nice, sure. but everyone has their faults. in this case, yoongi’s fault was befriending the group of homophobes, the ones that believed gays were gross, disgusting. yoongi, in a perfect world, would have disagreed with them.  
what had started out as a simple friendship between the two grew, despite yoongi’s common sense. it grew in the moments where yoongi would let his hand linger slightly too long on hoseok’s when they both happened to grab the same thing at the same time. it grew in the moments when yoongi would be caught staring at hoseok’s ever-so-bright smile from across the room or table, and he’d have to blame it on the thing your eyes do where they stop focusing. he knew he was playing a dangerous game. yoongi had never listened to his gut anyways. 

yoongi knew that the angry red cuts on his thighs wouldn’t actually do anything to help him. he knew it was pathetic, the way he cried over the red liquid dripping down his legs, the saltiness of his tears making the cuts sting even more. the image of him sobbing into his knees, curled up into a ball on the bathroom floor is something he never wants anybody to see. all of this for a stupid boy.

in the increasingly common nights where hoseok would ask yoongi to spend the night with him so they could study for their math test the next day, yoongi would always ignore the instinct in his stomach that told him to say no. for the most part they would study. the other parts of the night were spent with yoongi listening to hoseok talk about the cute girls in his other classes. sometimes he would tell yoongi about a boy he caught staring at him, and yoongi would have no choice but to laugh it off. it was times like these that made yoongi wish he was home, curled into a ball on his bathroom floor covered in his own blood.

hoseok’s friends started beating up the gay kids. yoongi never understood why physically harming anybody would bring joy to anyone. but then again, he supposes he’s a bit of a hypocrite. yoongi notices that hoseok would never partake in the violence, instead opting to watch from the side, usually next to yoongi. yoongi reluctantly allows this to give him a bit of hope.

despite yoongi putting up with hoseok’s friends and their opinionated, hurtful comments, he wasn’t a masochist. he didn’t enjoy it. it hurt. sometimes it made him cry, but never in the eye of anyone else. the cuts on his skin grew in numbers, and sometimes he found himself hoping that hearing them repeat the words, gays are gross, gays are disgusting, would somehow change him, that the words would somehow change the way he felt happier, better in the presence of hoseok. he knew that hearing the words as often as he did wouldn’t do anything but weigh him down, sink their teeth into him for him to remember at the most impractical times, but yoongi had never listened to his gut anyways. 

eventually the thought of eating became too much, the thought of food made him feel even sicker than watching hoseok’s friends throw punch after punch to some poor gay kid. so he stopped eating. 

he had been safe for two years. his secret had been safe for two whole years. he learned to keep his impulses on the down-low, to ignore the butterflies he felt in his stomach anytime hoseok would look at him. he learned to keep the small wounds on his thighs bandaged and hidden to the outside world.  
hoseok asked yoongi to spend the night again, and who was yoongi to say no to such a blinding smile? coincidentally, yoongi’s legs happened to still be sore. he obliged, nonetheless, but it turns out that he really should’ve listened to his gut.  
all it took was one eager, overly excited slap to his thigh from hoseok when he won whatever game he was playing, (yoongi wasn’t paying attention to the game, instead choosing to watch the person playing) and the sudden pain shooting through his body caused him to yell out, immediately clamping his hand over his mouth as if it would reverse time. he knew better. hoseok was a worrier. almost instantly, hoseok’s hands were wandering over yoongi’s arms, reaching to pull his hands away from his mouth. in that moment, yoongi felt his dam of emotions begin to crumble, and the next thing he knew he was sobbing into hoseok’s chest, the latter running a soothing hand through his hair. he shouldn’t be letting hoseok do this, considering he’s the reason behind it all. the pain. the hurt. in that moment, with yoongi wrapped up in hoseok’s arms, his only source of comfort came from the hope that hoseok was comforting him out of love. the kind that yoongi felt for him.  
at the end of the night, yoongi couldn’t find the strength within himself to lie to hoseok, so he told him about the cuts on his thighs. what he didn’t tell hoseok was why; that he was madly, deeply in love with him. hoseok promised to help him, however he supposes to do that. if only he knew.

things pretty much just went back to normal. neither of them brought up the incident, nor did they tell anyone else about it. yoongi believes it’s better this way. 

 

this was something yoongi should’ve expected to happen at some point, but he was still surprised when it actually did.  
he had been cornered in the bathroom by a few of hoseok’s friends. they told him that if he continued to hang out with them, hoseok included, then they’d expose his gay little secret to the entirety of the school. they’d figured it out. suddenly yoongi’s eyes were opened to the whole world of possibilities that lie in store for him, that is, if his secret got out. where he lived, being gay was not an option. he felt his breath pick up pace and his eyesight go blurry with tears. this made them mock him even more. yoongi felt the reflexive urge to curl in on himself as he dropped to the floor, breathing shakily into his knees as he rocked back and forth. this seemed to only add fuel to the fire, because the next thing he remembers is falling backwards and punches and kicks being littered all over his body. it felt like the equivalent of being thrown from a cliff, in yoongi’s opinion, but that’s probably only because his body wasn’t very strong due to lack of eating properly. yoongi also thinks that right now, maybe being thrown from a cliff would hurt less. 

after they tell him that he’d be better off dead, (yoongi was less surprised that they’d said this than that they’d allowed him to still be able to breathe) they leave him. the threat still lingers in the air, yoongi’s ragged breaths mixing with the scent of danger. he had to get out of there. slowly, as not to make the bruises and cuts on his body even angrier, he made his way out of the bathroom. to anybody watching him from afar, they’d think he was just done throwing up. and to be honest, yoongi thinks he might.

he doesn’t text hoseok at all the rest of the day, choosing to ignore the worried texts he received from the younger. the bathroom scene is on replay in his mind, the warning he’d gotten scaring him a bit more every time. nobody can know. the rest of the afternoon and night yoongi spends hunched over the toilet, throwing up anything he could. there’s more red cuts on his thighs, only this time, they’re deeper and he’s running out of room. 

meanwhile, on the other side of town, hoseok was left to think about his day. yoongi hadn’t talked to him since that morning, and his worry was increasing. what happened? was he okay? hoseok had texted a few of his other friends to ask if they’d seen him, but the only responses he got were them asking him why he was worried. he wasn’t exactly sure. the texts told him to stop acting gay. hoseok briefly thinks that it may be a joke, but it makes him stop and think.  
he’d always considered yoongi to be attractive, any sane person could see that. was it more than that? hoseok couldn’t deny that it felt like his stomach was doing somersaults anytime yoongi so much as looked in his direction. he had always brushed it off, not really wanting to open that can of worms. hoseok couldn’t deny that anytime yoongi touched him, whether it be gently on the arm or to put his hand on his shoulder, he could hear his heart threatening to beat out of his chest. watching his friends pick on the gay kids in the school always set off alarms in his head, but he had always just assumed it was mostly because he had a distinct dislike for violence. the ideas and visions he had always thought up during his boring classes (when he should've been doing his work) always consisted of his future with yoongi. there was never a time where hoseok wouldn’t imagine what it would be like if he and yoongi spent their lives together, living together, occasionally sharing a bed. hoseok wiped his hand down his face as if to wipe away his emotions. he’d never felt this way about any girls. especially not the ones he told yoongi about. half the time, he only talked about girls to yoongi just to see what his reaction would be. hoseok groans aloud, images of yoongi and his stupid, adorable gummy smile flooding into his mind. this wasn’t normal. this wasn’t supposed to happen. he was in love with his best friend. he supposes that worse things could’ve come about, and for the time being, thoughts of his other friends are pushed to the back of his mind. for a quick moment, he thinks about going across town to physically check on yoongi, just to make sure he was alright. he decides against it, because if space was what yoongi wanted, then space he would get. he would just see him tomorrow. he should’ve listened to his gut. 

 

yoongi couldn’t feel anything, wasn’t processing anything all he knows is that he had snuck out of the house, and was currently roaming the empty streets. the hand in his pocket fumbled with the small, folded piece of paper it found there. he couldn’t feel anything. for over an hour he aimlessly walked around, an idea of his destination tucked into his mind. his thoughts were scattered, he felt weightless, as if his body were on autopilot. for over an hour he walked.

he stares down at the water below him. all thoughts, emotions, feelings have left his body. he feels nothing. slowly, he shrugs his jacket off and neatly folds it at his feet. his body, still on autopilot, moves to step onto the ledge that overlooks the vast expanse of water below him.  
he closes his eyes and thinks about hoseok. then his mind wanders to hoseok’s friends. they were right.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

the police found his jacket the next morning, and the paper that was carefully folded in the pocket. 

 

Dear Hoseok

I’m sorry for being a coward. I realized that whatever I felt for you wasn’t normal. I probably should’ve told you, but the thought of being judged or shunned by you hurt even more than letting myself suffer. Do you remember the night where we sat and talked about those awful cuts on my thighs? Those were because of you. I’m not blaming you, though, I just thought I’d let you know. Please don’t let this incident keep you from smiling. Who knows what the world would do without your smile there to make it brighter. I’m sorry for whatever pain this may cause you, but I assure you that none of it was your fault. Don’t blame yourself. I’m the reason this happened. I couldn’t deal with the fact that at any given moment, you could’ve decided that you didn’t want to be around me anymore. I couldn’t deal with the fact that at any given moment you could’ve figured out that the reason I spent so much time staring at you was because I loved you. I have for the past two years, and I’m sorry I’m such a coward. Although I say this, I have no doubt in my mind that I will be forgotten eventually. There are so many other things I haven’t told you. I cut, you know that. I’ve cut every day for the past two years. I stopped eating. It got so bad that I couldn’t stomach anything without throwing up. When your friends cornered me in the bathroom, the same day I stopped responding to your texts, they told me that if I kept talking to you then they would tell the school I was gay. You know that you can’t be gay here. I don’t expect you to mourn my death, because if I were you, I wouldn’t either. Thanks for being my friend. I hope you get accepted into that dance company you keep talking about, and even if you don’t, just follow your gut. I wish you the best.

Yoongi

**Author's Note:**

> It took like an entire month to decide whether or not I was actually going to post this... It's not very good, but this is my first time posting any of my writing. Huuuge thanks to my friend Destiny who helped me tons!! She's the one that convinced me to post this. I do feel that this is kind of fast paced, but help/comments is/are always welcome :) Please give constructive criticism!! I've never been a very strong writer... I'm so scared to post this tbh. Please let me know how I can improve! 
> 
> Something that I don't think was really specified or that may be questioned: Hoseok was never a bad guy like his friends, and his friends weren't necessarily shitty at first. But the longer things went on they caught on to Yoongi's habits (hence the bathroom scene). Hoseok was never okay with his friends and the whole 'beating-up-the-gay-kids' thing, but he never really stopped it.
> 
> Thanks for reading! (if anybody ever reads this)


End file.
